Because of its location near the Pacific Ring of Fire, experiencing constant volcanic eruptions which led to the formation of its abundant and rich mineral deposits, the Philippines is, without a doubt, one of the most ideal places in the world to mine on. Its mineral resources are valued at $1.4 trillion which has led the government to rely on the mining industry, more specifically the large-scale corporate mining industry, for national development. Despite being a blessed nation in terms of gifts underneath the land, the Philippines is very vulnerable to typhoons; with an exposure of roughly 25% of the world’s typhoons each year. Because of the natural calamities that the country often experiences, numerous unfortunate events like tailings dam failures, water contamination, and soil erosion, which greatly affect the people, are sadly inevitable. The Philippines has continuously grown its large-scale mining industry only to widen the gap between the rich and the poor and bring about destructive long-term effects on the environment, therefore these large-scale mining operations must be halted before they harm the archipelago even more.

 

The large-scale mining industry at the moment is causing great damage to the Filipinos’ livelihoods and the environment. Although it employs the people, 80% of the country’s minerals are being exported to other countries which doesn’t benefit the local economy whatsoever. Mining operations are commonly done near the areas of the rural poor wherein the people rely on farming and fishing to survive. During these operations, tailings are produced, these are the waste products from mining, which are very toxic to the environment, that are then stored in tailings dams. These dams often experience failures because they are not made from high-quality materials that are far more expensive. When this happens, the water forms get contaminated, which leads to difficulties in restoration because they are biologically dead. These are also usually the source of water for irrigation in farms, so even the agricultural sector is affected. This leaves the people with no other choice but to find a different job to support their families.

 

The government continuously has high hopes in the large-scale mining industry for national growth, so The Philippine Mining Act of 1995 was created. The law aims to regulate mineral resources development in the country, and promote mining to foreign investors to improve the state of the economy, providing incentives to companies to further develop, explore, and utilize the land for mining while protecting the environment and any communities involved. Despite all the promises and provisions in the said Act, the government’s lenient implementation of it leads more people to doubt their competence as the governing body of the nation. At this rate, only the rich will benefit from this, while the cycle of poverty continues for the 33% of Filipinos living below the poverty line.

 

With the terrifyingly rapid pace that the world’s climate is changing, the future of everyone in the next few years remains bleak. Typhoons cause tailings dams to break and soils to be eroded, which will cause large amounts of money to be wasted, and with the climate change happening right now, it makes it more difficult to prevent these unfortunate events from happening. One of the main causes of climate change is the trapping of heat by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. When the heat gets trapped, the air becomes warmer which means that it can hold more water vapor leading to stronger rainfall; typhoons also become stronger and more unpredictable, like how they now have east to the west trajectory, which is very different from their usual southeast to northwest trajectory. Climate change poses more risks to the mining industry because the Philippines is a low-lying country mostly surrounded by water because of its archipelagic state. When the world becomes hotter, terrestrial glaciers have a great chance of melting which will cause a rise in sea level; not just the mining industry, but the whole country could potentially disappear in all the water.

 

Large-scale mining in the Philippines is very disastrous as it disrupts the livelihoods of the people. A “disaster” is defined by Wisner as the situation when “a significant number of vulnerable people experience a hazard and suffer severe damage and/or disruption of their livelihood system in such a way that recovery is unlikely without external aid.” The people depend on the environment to survive, so once the environment deteriorates, they will be left both jobless and homeless. The destructive long-term effects of large-scale mining are much more damaging than a decrease in employment rates in the Philippines once these mining operations are halted. We only have one earth, whereas there are numerous job opportunities in the country, considering that these miners were hired by corporate companies to mine, they’ll surely be able to find a job with their resume and job experience somehow. It might be disadvantageous for the miners to temporarily lose their jobs, but it’s a risk that we should be more willing to take rather than allowing our planet to die because of our greed and selfishness.

​

To conclude, the Philippines does not need the large-scale mining industry because its cons outweigh the pros. The “national development” that the government is referring to seems to only be for the privileged rich who lead these mining operations. The government should encourage farming and fishing more than mining to the Filipino people. The Philippines is naturally gifted with fertile land and diverse marine life, even if it may be an industry where there is less money involved, at least we are not destroying our environment. Filipinos keep on looking for other ways to lead a better life, but they fail to realize that it’s on the very land that they stand on. Being a modern farmer nowadays is both very smart, as new technologies will be able to help lessen the workload, and eco-friendly, as preservation of our precious land is still observed. We need to ensure that our future generations will still be able to live in a beautiful world, if it’s a more beautiful world than ours now, then it’s much better. We can’t let them suffer the consequences for what we have failed to do. The environment has given us so many gifts but most of the time we take them for granted. We need to do something before it’s too late, thus these large-scale mining operations should once-and-for-all be halted.

​

​